Clermont ITU

Sarah, Stevie, and Tyler are down in Clermont, Florida for the ITU Clermont Sprint Continental Cup taking place today! First race of the season for Stevie and Tyler, and Sarah looking to continue her strong start to 2012. Guys race at 2:00 PM (1:00 PM CT) and the girls at 3:30 PM (2:30 PM CT).

Good luck to them and all the other Canadians racing there today!


2012 WTS Series is coming soon as well, check out this little video:

Past couple of weeks and Canada Games Team announced

A lot has happened in the last couple weeks since we got back from Montreal. When we returned we got right back into training to get ready for Nationals which is coming up next weekend in Gatineau, Quebec. We returned from Montreal on Monday and some of the highlights of the next week included 6 x 1km around 5km pace, tempo/threshold run workout and swim/bike brick at Bird's Hill, and later on in the week mini tris back at Bird's Hill.

On June 28th Sarah-anne competed at the Hy-Vee ITU Elite Cup in Des Moines, Iowa. She also competed in the Hy-Vee ITU Triathlon Team World Championships, which took place the following day. Both races were very exciting to watch with a incredible sprint finish by Simon Whitfield to take the win, Andrew McCartney from B.C winning the swim prime, Lauren Groves running up from the chase pack to 3rd and the relay team of Lauren Groves, Brent McMahon, Kathy Tremblay, and Simon Whitfield winning the bronze medal. The next week we kept up the training with bike testing including a 16.5 km time trial, 6 x 1km, and mini tris at Bird’s Hill.

So heading into Nationals, Mark is ranked 3rd in the Junior Series, Riley tied for 18th , Trevor and Josh just outside of the top 20. On the girls side Rachael is ranked 6th and Stevie 7th.

Just today Stevie ran a new personal best in the 5km at the Athletics Manitoba Provincial Championships / CSG trials.

The Canada Games selection has finally been made. The games will be held in Summerside Prince Edward Island, with the Individual Sprint Triathlon (750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run) being held on August 18th and the Team Triathlon (300m swim, 7km bike, 2km Run) being held on August 21st. The Manitoba triathlon Roster for the 2009 Canada Games is:
Female
Sarah-anne Brault
Rachael Edwards
Stevie Moore

Male
Joshua Drad
Riley MacCharles
Mark Okany
Alternate - Trevor Penner

Team Manitoba Girls

Sarah-anne Brault

Rachael Edwards

Stevie Moore

Team Manitoba Guys

Joshua Drad

Riley MacCharles

Mark Okany

Alternate - Trevor Penner

First Bird's Hill Duathlon

Tonight was the first duathlon of the year at Bird's Hill. Everyone on the team made it out as it was a very nice evening for a race with the temperature around 15˚ and lighter winds then we have had for the last little while. The race consisted of a fast 2km run around the lake, one loop of the bike course ~13km and one more 2km run around the lake. This race was fairly short but certainly not easy. Everyone seemed to be relaxed and excited to go and it certainly showed on the first run with some fast splits. The bike was tough for most people with the wind playing a big factor and possibly some tired legs from Sundays TT. The hard ride made for some hard seconds runs to follow. In the guys race it was Riley who finished first followed closely by Mark, then Josh and Trevor. In the girls race Stevie took the win followed by Marita, Roseria and then Shayna and Rachael (who was not really racing but just helping Shayna out). After the race everyone seemed to be happy and most importantly more ready for some fast racing in a just over a week at PATCO. Results can be found here

Here are some pictures from today:

Road ITT #1 Birds Hill Park

This Sunday, most of us went out for the first bike time trial of the year at Bird’s Hill, which consisted of two 11km loops around the park. The day went fairly well considering most of the team have never time trialed before and weren’t sure what to expect. Josh, Marita, Shayna, Riley, Stevie, Trevor and Rachael all showed up and once we all ready to go we headed out to do one warm-up lap on the course with some 15-30 sec sprints. Warm up went well but we discovered the conditions weren’t as ideal as we would have wanted them to be. There was a big head wind on the south side of the loop making it very tough but, no one let that get to them and gave a maximal solid effort just as we intended to do. While it was a tough race, having teammates with us and great support from the parents made the race go by quicker and gave us motivation to go faster. We finished off the day with a 30 minute run off the bike, to complete a solid day of training. Most of us enjoyed our first time trial (especially Josh who got $50) and look forward to more in the future!

Here are a couple pictures:























































Not sure who this guys thinks he is but he should definitely work on his TT starts:



















Also Congrats to Sarah-Anne on her 16:44 5km over the weekend. WELL DONE!!

Let the blogging begin...

Since everyone else seems to be blogging these days. We decided that we would also like to keep everyone up to date on training, racing and such.

Last weekend we did our first bike races of the season (while actually ever). Mark, Stevie, Josh and Riley raced in Cat 4 and had a great time. The first race on the Saturday was 68 km and when we showed up we were hit by a suprise snow storm which quickly covered the roads. Fortunatly by the time the race started the roads had cleared off. The winds were quite strong making the day tough for the breakaways and ended up in a bunch sprint. Unfortunatly we had no idea what to expect and ended up going to early and getting passed in the last 75 meters. Lnks to results are found on this page. On Sunday only Riley made it out for the shorter 56 km, but made worth the effort winning the race with a solo break away in the last lap. Results are here.

The rest of the week was fairly solid with lots of tough work in the water and some solid bike intervals followed by a threshold run on Thursday.

Most people will be out at a time trial bike race on Sunday and then the first multisport races of the year with the Tuesday duathlons starting next week.

From your friends in central Canada,

MNTC